Business owners in the field service industry who rely on manual scheduling and dispatching — using a patchwork of spreadsheets and dispatch boards — risk damaging customer relationships by:
Delivering a poor customer experience, like putting customers on hold while the CSR hunts for a field worker’s availability, only to repeat the process if the proposed time slot doesn’t work.
Showing inadequate job management, such as misjudging how long a field technician will need for a job or sending a tech without the right skills or equipment.
Creating slow-downs and errors because dispatching isn’t connected to the rest of the workflow (invoicing, estimating, or job costing).
Many field service businesses use field service dispatch software to solve these problems.
However, apps that are solely built for scheduling and dispatching often don’t integrate with the other tools you use to run your field service operations — such as building estimates, work orders, and invoicing — causing some of the same inefficiencies that the dispatch management software should eliminate.
The best field service dispatch apps are all-in-one field service management software solutions that integrate scheduling and dispatching with the rest of your workflow so you can increase efficiency, close more jobs, and boost profitability.
FSM software helps you:
Streamline customer information so it’s all in one place.
Assign the right techs with the right skills to the right jobs, every time.
Optimize route planning so that techs arrive on-site, on time.
Keep field service technicians agile with mobile access to customer data and job details.
Provide excellent customer support by giving customers real-time updates on job progress.
Track performance metrics from real-time data to help decision making.
Integrate dispatching with the rest of your business operations.
In this post, we share seven best field service dispatch apps, starting with a deep dive into our own, ServiceTitan, which does all of the above.
Schedule a free personalized demo to see how ServiceTitan streamlines scheduling and dispatch and helps you manage your entire service operation.
1. ServiceTitan: Streamlines Scheduling & Dispatching with All Your Workflows
ServiceTitan’s cloud-based field service management software offers scheduling and dispatching features alongside call booking, job management, and more. Our dispatching and scheduling software gives field service businesses (like HVAC, plumbing, and electrical) the tools they need to keep field service teams flexible and proactive all day long.
Here’s a summary ServiceTitan’s features:
Call Booking That Optimizes Customer Experience
ServiceTitan’s call booking feature helps your CSRs efficiently book calls from the moment a customer calls your company with a service request.
Using drop-down menus and custom prompts, CSRs can simply enter the customer information directly into their system, including job type, start date, priority, and more.
If the call is from an existing customer, ServiceTitan will tell the CSR exactly who is calling before they even answer the phone, so CSRs can greet them by name, boosting customer satisfaction from the get-go. They can also pull up their complete service history (estimates, work orders, invoices, etc.), property data, and more from the very same screen, providing valuable efficiency gains and ensuring that they’re prepared to answer questions and swiftly book new jobs.
With ServiceTitan, there’s no need for the CSR to juggle a pen, paper and spreadsheet, put customers on hold, or call them back while they pull paperwork from a filing cabinet or spreadsheet.
We even provide examples of call center script templates that can be used in your own specific business. And, in the event that anything does go wrong, our Call Recording feature allows supervisors to replay a CSR’s conversation with a customer to verify the facts.
Note: Recordings are also available to techs via our Mobile App when they’re out on service calls.
Adjustable Capacity Planning to Improve Efficiency & Profitability
When it’s time to schedule an appointment, CSRs can easily see available time slots in the upcoming weeks without leaving the original screen (as is necessary in many other dispatch apps).
Our Adjustable Capacity Planning functionality, which is unique to ServiceTitan, allows business owners to define, automate, and implement a capacity planning strategy, which optimizes their schedules for profitability.
For example, you can set rules to reduce or exclude annual maintenance appointment slots from a busy holiday week and increase the capacity for high-priority, urgent service calls. Or you can choose to increase capacity for maintenance appointments during slow times.
This is a game-changer because entry-level employees don’t need to understand any of this to efficiently execute job bookings according to your preset business needs.
Our field service software further automates the booking process by ensuring that only techs with the skill set required for a given job can be assigned to that task. That way, field service companies can be sure that the right tech is dispatched to the right job every time.
Once a job is booked and scheduled, automated job confirmations, text or email notifications are sent to the customer to confirm appointment requests. All scheduled appointments are updated and automatically reflected in the dispatch board and the assigned tech’s personal schedule (which they can view via our mobile app).
Schedule Assistant to Book Jobs Faster
With many software tools (and certainly manual methods), job scheduling requires jumping between different screens to view technician schedules, going back and forth with customers to check their availability, and trying to account for various factors such as technician skills and routing. This is difficult, even for the most experienced CSRs.
ServiceTitan’s Schedule Assistant can be used directly from the call booking screen to solve these issues and improve margins by suggesting an optimal date, time, and technician that minimizes drive time.
It can also be used from the Dispatch Board, job record, and on recurring service work. Technician skills, zones, and non-job events are factored into Schedule Assistant’s recommendations—so you can have peace of mind that the right technicians will be sent to the right jobs.
Dispatch Board for Easy Field Service Coordination
ServiceTitan’s user-friendly dispatch board allows dispatchers to perform most of their work order management tasks without needing to leave the board. This includes being able to see which jobs are unassigned, unconfirmed, dispatched, working, and more.
From the dispatch board, users have access to:
Drag-and-drop functionality: Dispatchers can easily assign or reassign a tech; confirm or reschedule a job; view property data; and more.
Live activity feed: A feed to see real-time job status (Arrived, Paused, Complete) and to direct-message and communicate with techs (individually or en masse).
Notifications: Alerts that notify the dispatcher of unusual activity or problems that need to be addressed.
GPS tracking: With technician GPS tracking, dispatchers (and customers, if enabled) can track the location of field service team members as they’re on their way to a job. Dispatchers can also view techs’ downtime.
Schedule and route optimization: Options that help dispatchers coordinate appointments and route planning in an efficient way, including identifying jobs in locations where a tech is already working and rerouting techs when necessary to save on travel time.
Note: ServiceTitan also offers an add-on product, Dispatch Pro, with more advanced dispatching features. Using machine learning, Dispatch Pro’s algorithm runs thousands of scenarios to find the best technician for every job. This, plus its intuitive dispatch board automations, saves your dispatchers time, improves customer service, and maximizes profit.
Mobile App to Ensure Your Techs Stay Agile
Technicians using our Mobile App (via Android and iOS mobile devices) enjoy mobile access to their appointments and job details for the day, and a wide range of functionality.
Techs can manually dispatch themselves to each new job, and provide the office with status updates (such as “arrived” when they’ve reached a job site).
As new appointments are scheduled, or existing ones rescheduled, changes are reflected in real time within the technician’s dashboard.
Crucially, like dispatchers, techs can send and receive messages from their mobile device, so they keep on top of schedule changes, and communicate with the office about jobs. This also allows them to answer questions from the office without interrupting their workflow to take a call.
From their home screen dashboard, techs can access real-time data and:
Listen to call recordings between customers and CSRs
View a customer’s service history
Send text notifications to customers to confirm and revise arrival times or follow up
Take and upload pictures
Create estimates
Provide customers with Good Better Best presentations
Order parts
Collect signatures on work orders
Help customers apply for financing
Take check and credit card payments
And more
Web Scheduler for Direct Bookings
For customers who prefer to book their appointments online, our user-friendly website widget allows them to make online bookings without ever having to talk to anyone on the phone.
The web widget syncs with ServiceTitan’s dispatch board and shows real-time availability, so jobs are immediately confirmed. Appointments can also be canceled or rescheduled through a link that is sent out by email or text message.
Because our widget is fully integrated, you don’t need to wrestle with APIs or pay an additional fee for a third-party online call-booking tool that you have to manage separately.
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Integrated Scheduling & Dispatching with Other Business Operations
ServiceTitan software does much more than scheduling and dispatching. Our dispatching features are integrated with the entire workflow, which hugely increases efficiency and scalability. Dispatchers, techs and management can see all customer information, job details, invoices, materials pricing, inventory management, and more, in one place.
ServiceTitan offers:
Payroll features that decrease payroll prep time by automatically providing time tracking and timesheets (while syncing with the dispatch board); calculating overtime, commissions and bonuses; and helping you track and monitor crucial job-costing data in real time.
Accounting software integration with Viewpoint Vista, QuickBooks®, and Intacct.
Customer relationship management (CRM) tools that help improve office organization and workflow (in addition to improving the customer experience).
Service Agreement Software that helps you grow and manage preventative maintenance contracts.
Field Reporting Software that helps you monitor key financial performance indicators (KPIs), such as: CSR and technician metrics, revenue trends, and more.
To see why ServiceTitan is trusted by 100,000+ field service businesses, schedule a call to get a free, live, one-on-one walk-through of how our field service software can help you schedule and dispatch more efficiently, work smarter, and grow revenue.
2. FieldEdge
FieldEdge is a field service management software with scheduling tools for service businesses. As well as scheduling and dispatching, FieldEdge offers a wide range of features like ServiceTitan, including functionality for quotes and invoicing, service agreements, and more.
Learn more about how ServiceTitan compares to FieldEdge here.
3. Service Fusion
Service Fusion describes itself as an “All-In-One Field Service Management Software.” Like ServiceTitan, Service Fusion offers a wide range of key features in addition to scheduling and dispatching, including estimates, invoices, customer management, and more.
Learn more about how ServiceTitan compares to Service Fusion here.
4. Housecall Pro
Housecall Pro is a field service management software that includes scheduling and dispatching features among other tools for managing field service businesses.
This solution supports all aspects of the workflow, including scheduling jobs, assigning technicians, managing customer information, invoicing (including QuickBooks Online), and payment processing.
5. Jobber
Jobber is an all-in-one field service management software that’s widely regarded as user-friendly.
Jobber is customizable to fit your process, so you can schedule jobs, optimize routes, send quotes and invoices by text, and get paid on-site via the software’s mobile app.
Jobber is popular with small businesses that want a simple, easy-to-use solution.
Check out our comparison article: Jobber vs. ServiceTitan
6. FieldPulse
FieldPulse is an all-in-one field service management software for field service teams. FieldPulse offers scheduling and dispatching features, estimating, advanced CRM, and a customer portal.
FieldPulse is considered to be more suited to small- and medium-sized contractors rather than commercial businesses.
7. ServiceTrade
ServiceTrade is a field service management software designed for commercial contractors rather than home service providers. Key features include scheduling, dispatching, customer management, and project management.
Popular in the fire- and life-safety industry, ServiceTrade is liked for its ease of use and helpful customer support team.
ServiceTitan Software
ServiceTitan is a comprehensive software solution built specifically to help service companies streamline their operations, boost revenue, and substantially elevate the trajectory of their business. Our comprehensive, cloud-based platform is used by thousands of electrical, HVAC, plumbing, garage door, and chimney sweep shops across the country—and has increased their revenue by an average of 25% in just their first year with us.
